Gensonne straightened up, feeling the uniform collar peeking out from above his vac suit’s helmet ring pull briefly against his neck with the movement. Ridiculous. Even if every one of Copperhead’s lights went red he still had overwhelming superiority.

  Besides, the far larger Bogey Two was also burning its way toward them across the Manticoran system. Postponing the Bogey One skirmish would mean less time to reorganize and rearm before Bogey Two showed up.

  Bogey One was nearly in range.

  Time for them to die.

  “Tell Copperhead to keep working until they get it right,” he growled to Imbar. Keying his mike again, he straightened a little more. “All ships: stand by to light up wedges.”

  * * *

  Heissman had sent Belokas and Woodburn off the bridge for a short break, and Travis was strapped into the tac station when the moment everyone aboard Casey had been waiting for finally came.

  Only it wasn’t the single ship they were expecting. It was far, far worse.

  “New contact!” Rusk snapped from the sensor board, the words cutting across the low-level conversation murmuring across the bridge. “I make it six ships on intercept vector at two hundred fifteen gees. Missile range, approximately sixteen minutes.”

  “All ships, increase deceleration to two kilometers per second squared and go to Readiness One,” Heissman called into his mike, the calm of his voice in sharp contrast to the sudden pounding of Travis’s heart. “Mr. Long?” he added.

  Surreptitiously, Travis touched the helmet of his vac suit, fastened securely beside his station. Knowing it was there made him feel marginally safer. Marginally. “Six ships confirmed for Bogey Three,” he said, his eyes flicking back and forth between the displays and the computer’s analysis of the incoming data. One of the many things Woodburn had beaten into him over the past few weeks was that you never simply took the computer’s word for anything when you could do your own assessment and analysis. “From wedge strength I’m guessing two battlecruisers, two heavy cruisers, and two light cruisers or destroyers. One of the latter is hanging back in com position.”

  “Which pretty much confirms they’re a war fleet,” Woodburn’s voice came over Travis’s shoulder.

  Travis looked up to see the tac officer float up behind him, the other’s hard gaze flicking coolly across the displays. “Yes, Sir,” Travis agreed, reaching for his restraints.

  To his surprise, Woodburn waved him to stay where he was. “Any read on origination or class?” Heissman asked.

  “No, Sir,” Woodburn said as he settled into a hovering position beside Travis. “But the over/under configuration of the battlecruisers and cruisers might indicate Solarian training and military doctrine.”

  “Which doesn’t actually tell us where they came from,” Belokas pointed out as she floated rapidly across the bridge toward her station. “A lot of militaries use Solly doctrine.”

  “Maybe they’ll be kind enough to tell us,” Heissman suggested. “Everyone watch and listen.” Reaching over, he keyed the com. “Unidentified ships, this is Commodore Rudolph Heissman, Royal Manticoran Navy. Kindly identify yourselves and state your business in Manticoran space.”

  There was a short pause, not much longer than the fifteen seconds that the signal would take to make the round trip. Clearly, the other commander had been expecting the call and already knew what he was going to say. “Greetings, Commodore Heissman,” a deep voice boomed from the bridge speakers.

  Travis looked at the com display. The face now filling the screen was light-skinned, the color of a man who seldom ventured out into the sun, with blue eyes and a mouth that had a sardonic twist to it. From the shape and angles of its creases, Travis guessed that sardonic was the mouth’s most common mode. Above the face was a slightly balding carpet of pure blond hair cut in short military style. Below the face, a couple of centimeters of high-collared tunic could be seen above his vac suit.

  “Black collar line, blue-gray knitted collar,” Woodburn murmured. Travis nodded, already keying the parameters into the computer for an archive search.

  “My name and origin are unimportant,” the man continued, “but for convenience you may address me as Admiral Tamerlane. My business is, I regret to say, the destruction of you and your task force. I am, however, willing to discuss terms of surrender. If you’re interested in pursuing that offer, you may indicate that by striking your wedges and preparing to be boarded.”

  He tilted his head slightly, and as he did so one of the muted insignia on his collar came into better view. A curved comet with a star at its inner edge, Travis decided, and added it to the search criteria. “This is, naturally, a limited time offer,” Tamerlane continued. “I read you as coming into missile range in just under eighteen minutes; somewhat less, of course, if you break off your pointless attempt to escape and turn to offer battle. I’ll await your answer.” He reached off-screen and his image vanished.

  “Confident s.o.b.,” Heissman commented. “Anyone recognize him or his accent?”

  The bridge remained silent, and out of the corners of his eyes Travis saw shaking heads. “Mr. Long?” Heissman asked.

  “The uniform could be Solarian,” Travis affirmed, scanning the search results. “But a lot of Core World navies wear something similar. What we could see of the insignia looked more like something the Tahzeeb Navy uses.”

  “So they’re probably mercenaries,” Belokas said.

  “Probably,” Woodburn agreed. “Not sure what calling himself Tamerlane means. The original was an Old Earth conqueror who ran roughshod over a good chunk of the planet a little over two thousand years ago.”

  “Tamerlane was also considered a military genius,” Heissman said. “I wonder which of those two aspects he’s trying to reference.”

  “Either way, he’s definitely the megalomaniac type,” Belokas said. “Confident, but probably not so confident that we can goad him into telling us what he has planned for Manticore after he runs us over.”

  “Certainly not until he’s sure we can’t send anything useful back to System Command or Aegis,” Heissman agreed. “Speaking of Aegis, what’s their current ETA?”

  “They’re still nearly two hours away,” Belokas said. “We could postpone the battle a bit by pushing our compensators right up to the red line, but it wouldn’t be enough for them to get here before we have to fight.”

  “What about Bogey Two?” Heissman asked.

  “Nothing since their last course adjustment,” Woodburn said. “Depending on where in the plot cone they are, they’ll probably reach sensor range within the next ten to twenty minutes.”

  “So no allies, but probably more opponents,” Heissman said. “In that case, I see no point in delaying the inevitable.” He keyed his com. “All ships, this is the Commodore. We’ve been challenged to a fight, and I intend to give them the biggest damn fight they’ve ever been in. Gorgon, maintain current course and acceleration—your job is to get the records of what’s about to happen back to Manticore. Hercules and Gemini, stand by for a coordinated one-eighty pitch turn on my mark.”

  Travis frowned. “A pitch turn?” he asked quietly. Most turns he’d seen had been of the yaw variety, where the ship rotated along its vertical axis, instead of a pitch flip that sent the ship head over heels and briefly put the stronger but more sensor-opaque stress bands between the ship and the incoming threat.

  “A pitch turn,” Woodburn confirmed, an edge of grim humor to his voice. “We can launch a salvo of missiles just before our wedge drops far enough to clear their line of sight, which will keep them from spotting the booster flares. By the time we’ve turned all the way over the missiles will be clear and ready to light off their wedges once Commodore Heissman decides which target he wants to go after first.”

  Travis nodded. Casey herself had electromagnetic launchers that didn’t betray themselves with such telltales, but both Hercules and Gemini had the standard boosters on their missiles, vital for getting the weapons far enough from the ship that they could safely light up their wedges. If Janus could launch without Tamerlane spotting the missiles it would give the Manticorans at least a momentary advantage.

  “Pitch turn: mark,” Heissman called. “Stand by two missiles from each corvette and four from us, again on my mark.”

  Travis looked over at the tac display. Casey and the two corvettes were turning in unison, their loss of acceleration sending Gorgon toward the edge of the field even as the invading formation seemed to leap forward.

  And the enemy would unfortunately have plenty of time to work on closing the remaining distance. Pitch turn or yaw turn, either type of one-eighty took a good two minutes to complete.

  “Missiles on my mark,” Heissman said softly, his eyes on the tac.

  “Missiles ready,” Belokas confirmed. “Target?”

  Heissman watched the tac another moment, then turned to Woodburn. “Suggestions, Alfred?”

  “I’d go with all eight on one of the cruisers,” Woodburn said. “The way they’re deployed strongly suggests the battlecruisers have opted for extra missiles instead of carrying their own countermissile loads, which would mean they’re relying on the cruisers to screen for them. If we can kill one of them right out of the box, we may have a shot at doing some damage to one of the big boys.”

  “I’m sure Admiral Locatelli would appreciate us softening them up a bit for him,” Belokas said dryly. “I’ll go with Alfred on this one.”

  Heissman looked at Travis. “Mr. Long?”

  Travis looked at the tac display. Three small ships against six . . . “I’d throw four at each cruiser, Sir.”

  “Reason?”

  “If those are mercenaries out there, they may be running a nonuniform mix of ship types and classes,” Travis said. “Watching their defenses might give us some clues as to what types of ships they have and how to more effectively attack them. By attacking two at once, we’ll get that data a bit faster.”

  “Alfred?” Heissman invited.

  “We’d still do better to saturate one of them,” Woodburn said. “Frankly, Sir, we’re not going to get a lot of shots off in the time we have. We should concentrate on doing as much damage as possible.”

  “You may be right,” Heissman agreed. “But Mr. Long is also right. Information is what we need most, both for ourselves and for Admiral Locatelli. I think it’s worth the risk.” He keyed his com. “Hercules and Gemini: one missile from each of you at each of the leading cruisers. We’ll throw an additional two at each one.”

  He favored Travis with a small smile. “Let’s see how well Admiral Tamerlane can dance.”

  * * *

  The three nearer Manticoran ships finished their turn—a pitch turn, interestingly enough—and with that, their throats were open to attack. “Stand by missiles,” Gensonne called. The first salvo would go to Casey, he decided. Odin’s telemetry could only control six missiles at once, and while normally he would have preferred to hit the Manticoran cruiser with something a little more crushing, at this point it would be more useful to see what kind of defenses they could bring against a slightly less overwhelming attack. “Fire salvo: one through six, targeting—”

  “Missiles!” Imbar snapped.

  Of course missiles, was Gensonne’s first reflexive thought. He’d already said to stand by missiles.

  Then his brain caught up, and he jerked his head around to the sensor display.

  There were missiles out there, all right: eight of them, creeping toward him with wedges down and only the relative velocities between them and the Volsungs providing them any movement at all. He opened his mouth to demand that Imbar tell him where they’d come from and why they weren’t running under power—

  And then, abruptly, all eight missiles lit up their wedges and leaped forward toward the Volsung force.

  “Where the hell did they come from?” Imbar snarled. “They’re not supposed to have electromagnetic launchers.”

  “It was that damn pitch turn,” Gensonne said as he finally got it, throwing a glance at the countdown timer. One hundred and three seconds until impact. “They fired while our view of their booster flares was blocked.”

  Imbar grunted. “Cute.”

  “Very,” Gensonne said darkly. “But don’t worry about it. We can play cute, too.”

  Only for the next hundred seconds or so, he couldn’t. Forty seconds from now, sixty seconds before the incoming missiles’ projected impact, Copperhead and Adder would launch a salvo of countermissiles into the path of the incoming weapons. Forty-five seconds after that, all six Volsung ships would open up with their autocannon in an effort to stop any missiles that made it through the countermissile gauntlet.

  The frustrating hell of it was that for most of the missiles’ run it would be impossible to tell which ship or ships they were targeting. Still, if Heissman had any brains he would be aiming this first salvo at one or both of the cruisers. A properly competent flag officer should have deduced from the Volsungs’ configuration that the cruisers were the ones carrying the countermissiles, and were therefore the ones that needed to be taken out before the Manticorans could have a reasonable shot at Odin or Tyr.

  Well, let them try. The cruisers were carrying full point-defense loads, and if Heissman wanted to waste his missiles battering against their defenses he was more than welcome to do so.

  Except . . .

  With a curse, he spun around to the status board. There, still glowing red amid the field of green, were the lights marking Copperhead’s troubled ventral autocannon.

  And if one of the Manticoran missiles happened to come in from the side with the bad sensor . . .

  “All ships: cease acceleration on my mark,” he snarled, turning back to the tac. The two standard responses to a situation like this would be for Copperhead to either yaw to starboard to adjust for the miscalibration or else pitch up or down to interpose his wedge between the ship and the incoming missiles. Unfortunately, if the rest of the force was under acceleration at the time, both countermoves would instantly break the Volsungs’ formation. The only way to maintain their relative positions would be for all six ships to kill acceleration and coast.

  Of course, that would also give the Bogey One ships a breather from the doom arrowing in on them. Still, it was hard to imagine what they could do with those extra few minutes. The rear ship, the one Heissman was clearly hoping would get clear with data from the battle, would gain a little distance, but it was already too little too late.

  As for the other three ships, they would have to do another one-eighty if they hoped to do any more running themselves. Any such move would be relatively slow and instantly telegraphed.

  No, Heissman’s force wasn’t going anywhere. Gensonne could afford the time to do this right. “All ships, cease acceleration: mark. Imbar?”

  “All ships coasting,” Imbar reported. “Formation maintained.”

  Gensonne nodded, peering at the tac display. Copperhead was already taking advantage of the lull and was starting its starboard yaw.

  Hell with that. If they were going to be forced to coast anyway, there was no reason for Copperhead to waste any of its point-defense weaponry. “Von Belling, belay your yaw,” he ordered into his mike. “Pitch wedge to the incoming fire.”

  “I can handle it,” von Belling’s voice came from the speaker.

  “I said pitch wedge,” Gensonne snapped.

  “Aye, aye, Sir,” von Belling said with thinly disguised disgust. “Pitching wedge.”

  On the tactical, Copperhead changed from its yaw turn to a vertical pitch, dropping its bow to present its roof to the incoming missiles. Gensonne watched, splitting his attention between the cruiser and the incoming missiles. If von Belling’s momentary bitching had left the maneuver too late, the admiral promised himself darkly, he’d better hope the Manticoran missiles got to him before Gensonne himself did.

  Fortunately, it wasn’t going to come to that. Copperhead turned in plenty of time, and as Odin’s autocannon roared into action Gensonne watched the incoming salvo split into two groups, one set of four targeting each of the cruisers. The ones aimed at Copperhead disintegrated harmlessly against its roof, while Adder’s countermissiles and autocannon made equally quick work of the other group. “Stand by for acceleration,” Gensonne ordered. Copperhead was starting its reverse pivot again, and as soon as it was back in position the Volsungs could resume their full-acceleration pursuit of the Manticorans.

  Meanwhile, there was no reason Gensonne had to wait until for acceleration before he took the battle back to Heissman. “Missiles ready?” he called.

  “Missiles ready,” Imbar confirmed.

  “Six at the light cruiser,” Gensonne said. “Fire.”

  * * *

  “All missiles destroyed,” Rusk reported. “No hits.”

  “Acknowledged,” Heissman said. “Alfred? What have we learned?”

  “Their point-defense seems comparable to ours,” Woodburn said, peering closely at the computer analysis. “Countermissiles on the cruisers, autocannon on everyone else. Looks like pretty high quality of both. Their ECM is also good—looks like they got a soft kill on at least one of the missiles, possibly two. They also don’t seem shy about spending ammo.”

  “Or missiles, either,” Rusk said tightly. “Missile trace, two: thirty-five hundred gees, estimated impact time one hundred fifty-three seconds. Make that four missiles, same impact projection . . . make it six. Missile trace, six, impact one hundred forty-eight seconds.”

  Travis winced. Six missiles, with all four of the Manticoran ships at only eighty percent of point-defense capacity.

  Woodburn was clearly thinking along the same lines. “Commodore, I don’t think we’re ready to take on that many birds.”

  “Agreed,” Heissman said. “But we also need to pull some data on their capabilities.”

  “So we’re going to take them on?” Belokas asked.

  “We’re going to split the difference,” Heissman corrected. “Start a portside yaw turn—not a big or fast one, just a few degrees. I want to cut the starboard sidewall across the missile formation, letting just one or two of them past the leading edge and trusting the countermissiles to take those out. That way we get a closer look at the missiles and their yield without risking having too many of them coming in for us to block.”